Sudan suggested an initiative for settling the disagreements between Egypt and Ethiopia regarding their dispute about the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), by suggesting French consultancy firms BRL and Artlia conduct environmental studies on the impact of the dam, sources told Al-Masry Al-Youm on Tuesday.

Sources reported that the head of the Sudanese technical team, Saif al-Din Hamad, is in tripartite talks saying that the initiative is based on the amount of River Nile water (55.5 billion cubic meters) that Egypt receives, and that the Ethiopian side has agreed to it in principle.

Sources added that consulting firms could conduct studies on the amount of water which flows through the river, and the use of water by countries along which the river runs. Accordingly, they would then apply models for filling and storing the dam, which is governed by The Helsinki Rules on the Uses of the Waters of International Rivers and The 1997 United Nations Convention on the law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses.